Are Their Any Other Graphical Screen-Readers in Linux, Other than ORCA?

[Linux for blind general discussion]

maybe running a terminal using edbrowse would help.

On Fri, 19 Mar 2021, Linux for blind general discussion wrote:

> For what it's worth, I agree that it's disgusting how many websites
> use JavaScript and other rich web content for things that could be
> done with basic HTML... and wish I knew a good way to selectively
> block problematic JavaScript while allowing just the JavaScript that
> is vital for some websites to function. Pre-Quantum versions of
> NoScript worked great for this, but that became pretty much unuseable
> with the Quantum overhaul and I've yet to find a decent replacement.
>
> I also think Orca's preferences are downright labyrinthine, making
> toggling settings that aren't set to a keyboard shortcut impractical
> despite cases where it would be useful to do so.
>
> That said, on the dream interface front, my biggest want is a
> text-mode web browser that I find half as usable as Firefox with
> Orca... My main reason being that Firefox and Orca are by far the
> largest apps I use on a daily basis, and if I could find a
> satisfactory text-only browsing experience, I could ditch the GUI
> altogether.
>
> At a bare minimum, it would need to feature:
> Full support for modern web technologies(As much as I hate JavaScript
> and it's ilk, there are just too many websites that abuse them to
> avoid them entirely).
> Built-in navigational Hotkeys similar to those provided by Orca, NVDA, and JAWS.
> Firefox-like Keybindings, or at least keybindings that aren't
> completely alien to someone used to Graphical browsers.
> A page renderer the forces multi-column pages into a single column so
> screen readers aren't trying to read text from multiple columns.
> Arrow keys move around the page like in most text editors.
> focused objects stretch to the width of the screen.
> Tabbed browsing.
>
> And things that would be nice to have:
> JavaScript and Cookies blocked by default, but with keyboard shortcuts
> to allow them on the current page, reloading the page as needed and a
> permissions menu that provides more nuanced control of these or to
> permanently white list certain domains. Also, auto whitelisting of
> cookies created when submitting a log-in page would be nice(actually,
> it would be ideal if only cookies needed to maintain log-ins where
> accepted and all others were blocked by default).
> pressing enter simulates a left mouse click on the character under the
> reading cursor if enter would normally do nothing. For websites with
> JavaScript clickables or places that appear as plain-text that are
> meant to be clicked.
>
> If anyone knows of any text-mode browsers with any of these features,
> I'd love to hear about them, but from what I've tried, most text-mode
> browsers do one or more of the following:
>
> preserve multi-column layouts, which leads to stuff from different
> columns getting read together(e.g. pages with a list of links in the
> left margin and the main content in the middle end up with each line
> consisting of a link from the left column and a line of text from the
> middle column. mixing content that one doesn't want mixed and often
> making the body text more choppy due to some of each line going to
> text that should be off screen).
>
> Have incomplete or non-existant support for rich web content, meaning
> many websites simply don't work.
>
> Have keybindings that make no sense to someone who was introduced to
> the Internet via graphical browsers(though I imagine many people who
> have been using text mode browsers since the dos days and are only
> trying graphical browsers due to how the web is growing ever more
> hostile towards text-only browsers are probably just as lost
> attempting the migration in the other direction). Up and down arrows
> acting the way I expected from  shift+tab and tab was surpremely
> disorienting the first time I tried a text-mode browser, not to
> mention that it leaves me dependant on screen review to read what's
> between tabbable elements.
>
> And quite frankly, the navigational hotkeys provide by Orca, NVDA, and
> JAWS are so darn useful, I wonder how I got by without them back when
> I could see. Sure, a scroll wheel or swiping on a touchscreen is a
> powerful tool for jumping over large sections of a web page when you
> can see well enough to do so, as is simply tapping/clicking on the
> elements you want to put focus on, but it still sounds slow compared
> to keeping one's fingers on the keyboard and instantly jumping between
> headings or between form elements of a specific type... and why screen
> readers have to provide this functionality instead of it being a
> standard feature in all browsers, graphical and text-based, baffles
> me... If my vision was miraculously restored tomorrow, it would be
> tempting to keep Orca around just for the navigational hotkeys if I
> couldn't find a Firefox extension to do the same.
>
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